10 Football Foundation Wins: Second Edition
June 26, 2015 | Football
Over the years, the stories have been told, the game stats analyzed, the memories shared and celebrated. USF Football beats Florida State. Miami. Notre Dame. West Virginia. Louisville.
Great days indeed, but the list of landmark wins for the Bulls doesn't end there. As we approach the 19th season of USF Football, some very good and very memorable wins from USF Football's first dozen seasons helped take the program to the next level.
This summer we take a look back at 10 USF Football foundation wins. They are not the greatest Bulls games of all time, and some of the opponents are far from national powerhouses, but the story lines for each are intriguing. And these games, maybe as much as the blockbuster wins we all remember, show how the meteoric climb of USF Football began.
By JIM LOUK
Voice of the Bulls
USF 24, Liberty 21
Lynchburg, Va.
Sept. 19, 1998
From 1998 to 2001, the Bulls played the Liberty Flames four times. USF won the last three games in the series routinely, by 28, 38 and 31 points. But the very first win had far greater significance, and gave us our first understanding that the second year Bulls would be able to build on the inaugural team's success.
USF had beaten Slippery Rock and Valparaiso by a combined score of 90-10 to open the season, and traveled to Lynchburg in week 3 with a 2-0 mark. The Bulls were technically a team without a home field at this time; the Valparaiso game was their last in the old Tampa Stadium, and they wouldn't make their Raymond James Stadium debut until Oct. 3 against Citadel.
Liberty would be by far the biggest challenge of the young season for the Bulls. The Flames were a well-respected 1-AA team coming off a nine-win season and looking for their first win of 1998 after losing on the road to No. 21 Appalachian State the prior week. They were led by former NFL head coach Sam Rutigliano. The game atmosphere was impressive as well; the on-campus Williams Stadium seated about 15,000 and would be mostly full that day. And there was another rarity; a company in Virginia would produce the game and a local Tampa station would air it, giving Bulls fans one of their very first opportunities to watch a USF road game on television.
Against that backdrop, the Bulls took the field and immediately struggled offensively. Liberty scored on a long touchdown pass on the first play of the second quarter to take a 7-0 halftime lead. At the break the USF stats weren't pretty; six first half possessions resulting in four punts, a missed field goal and an interception. The Bulls managed only 99 yards passing and exactly zero yards rushing.
But USF would get the ball to start the second half, and immediately things turned around. Chad Barnhardt hit a 37-yard pass to Clif Dell and then one play later found Leon Matthews in the end zone from 10 yards out to tie the game. After a defensive stop, the Bulls marched to the Liberty 3-yard line before Bill Gramatica hit a short field goal to give USF its first lead. The Bulls ran up 152 yards of third quarter offense and led, 13-7, heading in to the fourth quarter.
It went back and forth in the final 15 minutes. After a Liberty touchdown, Otis Dixon ran for a score, and the Bulls then converted the two-point conversion on a Barnhardt-to-Wes Marshall pass. It was 21-14 Bulls with just under 7 minutes left. We shouldn't have been, but in the broadcast booth we couldn't help but think about 3-0 at that point.
Bad move. Sure enough, Liberty responded with a nine-play drive to tie the game with just over 3 minutes to go.
After the kickoff, the Bulls started on their own 20-yard line with two objectives; get rid of most or all of the 3 minutes remaining, and put some points on the board for the win. They executed both goals perfectly.
The textbook drive that followed featured outstanding clock management. The big play was a 30-yard Barnhardt completion to R.J. Anderson to the Liberty 24, getting USF in field goal range for Gramatica.
From there, things went oh, so slowly. The Bulls ran two plays to center the ball and keep the clock running, losing yardage to the Liberty 27.
USF ran the clock down to 5 seconds remaining before using a timeout to get lined up for the kick. Then Liberty used a timeout to make Gramatica wait even longer.
But when the opportunity finally came, Gramatica was true from 44 yards out. The timing was perfect; the clock came up zeroes just as the ball went through the uprights. The final was 24-21 Bulls and USF was 3-0 on the season.
Barnhardt wound up 16 of 33 for 293 yards. Gramatica had the field goals, including the game-winner, and Demetrius Woods led the team with nine tackles.
USF would go on to an 8-3 record in 1998, including a 5-0 start. (The first loss would come to Western Kentucky and quarterback Willie Taggart the following month). It would be the first of six consecutive winning seasons for USF Football, with the win over Liberty a catalyst for a successful Bulls season.
First Edition: USF 44, Cumberland 0 (1997)
